He advocated a bill which passed, and was signed by Governor
Cleveland, forbidding such manufacture. So far, so good; but there
were persons who found that the law was against their interests.
They succeeded in getting the Court of Appeals to set the law
aside, and in their decision the judges said the law was an
assault upon the "hallowed associations" of the home!
This made Roosevelt wake to the fact that courts were not always
the best judges of the living conditions of classes of people with
whom they had no contact They knew the law; they did not know
life. The decision blocked tenement house reform in New York for
twenty years, and was one more item in Roosevelt's political
education.
CHAPTER IV
"RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING TRAIL"
At the end of Mr. Roosevelt's membership in the New York Assembly,
he began his life on a ranch in North Dakota. In this way he not
only learned much about the Western people, but came to know the
ranchman's life, and to have his first chance to shoot big game.
He had married Miss Lee in 1880, the autumn of the year he left
college. Less than four years afterwards his wife died, following
the birth of a daughter. His mother died on the next day, and
Roosevelt under the sorrow of these two losses, left New York, and
spent almost all his time on his ranch, the Elkhorn, at Medora.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45